"More, More, More!" (Or How to Build a More Secure Food System)

So I'm cutting an onion yesterday and thinkiing about an interview I just did with a farmer named Laurie Moore. Laurie and her husband, who were both working non-farm jobs, inherited the family farm about ten years ago--60 acres just three miles over the Georgia border into Alabama. They started farming specialty produce for chefs--edible flowers, baby squash, things like that, and all the chefs kept saying to the Moores, "More, more, more!"

Fast forward. Now, in addition to farming their own farm, Moore Farms and Friends offers fresh produce, honey, eggs, cheese, meats, flowers, herbs, and pantry foods. All produce is either grown naturally on their farm, on one of their friend’s farms or produced regionally in the Southeastern United States. Every farm or artisan Moore Farms and Friends represents is either Certified USDA Organic, Certified Naturally Grown, or Sustainable in their methods. (We had a big chat about what this Certified Naturally Grown thing means--apparently small farmers are eschewing the USDA organic certification because the cost is too high, but this certification supports good, clean, healthy growing methods at an affordable cost for small producers. Personally, I'd still need to know more about each farmer.)

Where Moore Farms and Friends shines is in their easy on-line ordering, the ability for customers to customize box contents, and the very sharply done weekly newsletter (I love a nice newsletter). (Interestingly, out of 225 boxes delivered each week, only about 45 of them are custom. Perhaps folks like having choices but ultimately appreciated the random diversity of the $20 weekly "farmers pick.") They deliver to multiple locations in Atlanta and they have a booth at that "newish" farmers market on Peachtree Street by that cathedral. The market apparently opens with a bell at 8:30 on Saturday mornings. I like that!

And so I stood there, slicing my onion, and it hit me. Building a food system is like the concentric circles of that onion. The center is the garden, closest to home. The next ring represents my local farmers, Charlotte and Corinna and Melissa and Chad. The third ring is the regional system, what Laurie does. She pulls from 25 different small farms all over the Southeast. Her box contents change every week and include things like tomatoes from Tennessee and oranges from Florida. The next ring is national--those New England cranberries I like at Thanksgiving time, or those frozen wild blueberries from the Pacific Northwest, or my everyday organic whole wheat and other grains. And then international--can you say bananas? Coffee? Chocolate?

It's not all about local, nor do I think it should be. A secure food system covers all the bases so that in case of emergency or natural disaster or these never-ending food contamination outbreaks (or just for the diversity that adds spice to life), there are options. Good, healthy options.

And so I look forward to adding Moore Farms and Friends to my mix. And covering more bases, one onion ring at a time.